


The Alchemist's Daughter

by kittydesade



Category: Hex (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 03:46:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/605476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittydesade/pseuds/kittydesade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Ella Dee takes an oath to the Church, and a certain fallen angel takes an interest as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Alchemist's Daughter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [navaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/gifts).



"Concentrate. Focus." 

Ella concentrated as hard as she could, eyes narrowed, focusing on the sword in front of her and the sword beyond that. And when the soldier came at her she was ready for him, blocking every strike. Until the one that got her on the backs of her legs with the flat. 

"Focus does not mean squint very hard."

Ella dropped the point of her sword into the dirt, forgetting for a crucial two seconds that this would get her yelled at. "I _am_ focusing!" 

"Have a little more respect for the blade," he smacked her sword up, then smacked her across the knuckles for good measure. "Even a practice blade. Again. This time, try to hit _me_ and not the sword."

Ella wiped the sweat out of her eyes and tried again.

By the time the lesson was over she had accumulated fresh welts over older ones, her muscles were twitching and her eyes were burning both from exhaustion and from the humiliation of being smacked repeatedly with a flat piece of shoddy metal. His practice sword wasn't even well-made. And he beat her with it six falls out of seven. 

"Go, get some water. Sit down. You look like a stiff breeze could knock you over." Dempsey gestured at the water barrel which still had shards of ice floating in it from that morning. "Mind you don't drink too fast."

Because the water would shock her chest and make her hurt worse, she knew. Ella went over and rescued the dipper, freezing her fingers in the process, and then all but fell onto the nearby bench as she took shallow sips from the wooden bowl. Her feet were covered in mud past the ankles; she couldn't see the leather of her boots anymore. Icy mud. And she'd barely gotten a touch on the old bastard.

She waited to curse him until he was into the house and out of sight, though. The last time she'd said horrible words at him her father had cuffed her 'round the ear and told her never to say those words unless she meant it, and though she'd meant it at the time she would have regretted it later if such things came to pass. Most likely Dempsey was going in to tell father how she'd never make a fighter, how she should stick to her books and was he sure he wanted her trained in swordplay. She kept tripping over her own feet and couldn't see the sword coming to save her life.

"It's not that bad." Dempsey landed on the bench next to her just after she'd finished the dipperful, no doubt expecting her to screech and jump. She didn't, although her heart did try to leap out of her chest as the old wood creaked beneath the large man. Dempsey was half a head taller than most, and broad as the side of a barn. It had made him a good bos'n on Drake's ship and it had drawn her father to request him to teach Ella swordplay and self-defense.

Ella didn't share his good humor. "It's terrible. Look at you, you're barely breathing hard, I've got no touches on you..."

"You got five, if I'm not mistaken."

She glared at him. "And I'm covered in welts. How is that not that bad?"

He still chuckled. "You could have gotten no touches. You scored your first hit just three days ago." 

Which was true, now that she thought of it. She'd been so excited to score a hit on him, and in a good place, across the belly. And three days later she had thought she could hold her own. It seemed childish when he pointed it out. 

"Don't look so glum, little one," he ruffled her hair. "You're doing well enough for a girl of fourteen."

"Most boys of fourteen already know this," she pointed out. "Most boys of fourteen could..." Ella looked up and down at Dempsey's bulk. "Maybe not against _you._ "

Now he outright laughed. "No. Nor, perhaps, against you. And you are not most boys of fourteen, you are Ella Dee, and that is more than enough for you to be going on with. Go on inside, now, your father wants a word with you." He nudged her when she didn't move quick enough. "Go on."

  


  


  


At least with the books Ella knew where she stood. Her father had been writing treatise after treatise on alchemy and astrology since she was old enough to read; she'd done some of her first reading on the early drafts of those books. Studying with her father was one of the best parts of the day, because she could exchange banter with him while they did so and, if not keep up with him, at least she could follow along readily enough given very few hints. 

The hard part was going with him to court on the days when he cared to make an appearance. Which was mercifully seldom, but she was still forced to put on a dress and do up her hair and other restraints she never had gotten accustomed to. Out of all her siblings, her mother had long since ceded authority over her to her father, and as a result she was allowed to run around the house in cast-off trousers and a tunic and vest like her brothers. She was not, however, allowed to cut her hair to a manageable length.

"I hate this dress," she muttered, while her father ignored her in favor of greeting the newly-titled nobles at the court. It was one of those traditional winter things, Ella hadn't taken notice, but her father had. "It itches, and it's too tight, and I keep tripping over it."

"If it were too tight all over you wouldn't be tripping over it," her father pointed out. She made a face at him and picked her skirts up by handfuls, only relaxing her fingers into something more like a lady's gentility when he glared at her. "I want you to learn all the battlefields, not just the ones of magic and swordplay. That includes the court."

"B--" She got as far as her first consonant before hearing herself in her head and deciding against it. Whining that she didn't want to be at Christmas court would not make this any pleasanter. 

Her father only gave her a quizzical look, daring her to say something, and then moved on. 

After they'd been presented around she got to find her own way about, which was always more complicated than she imagined. Every evening after one of these events she fancied the next time she would find a sturdy older man or two, make a friend, and pass the time in easy conversation about one thing or another that transpired between the countries these days. And every evening she found herself gently but firmly ignored when she tried to talk politics. It was aggravating, and she always forgot between one party and the next that they didn't, in fact, take her seriously. No matter whose daughter she was. 

"... Alice Pole, and..." the servant escorting one of the ladies in waiting to the queen frowned when he came to Ella. Just two seconds too late to cover her startlement, she realized this was where she was supposed to introduce herself.

"Elizabeth Dee," her hand twitched as she fought to keep her posture and gestures ladylike, even the courtesy. "At your service, mum." 

"Dee..." the lady in waiting frowned. "The astrologer's daughter?"

"Yes." Which was all she managed, though she had the impression they were waiting for her to explain why that should make her important. "My father counsels the Queen on matters of scheduling and ... other things of importance."

She had no idea what her father did when he was holed up in his meetings with the Queen. Neither, apparently, did anyone else, because they smiled and nodded and "Of course," which amounted to patting her on the head like a proud spaniel pup and sending her off again. The ranks of samite-shouldered women closed to her, and Ella groused that she hadn't wanted in among their number anyway. 

She had just managed to make it to the dining hall as they started to file in for supper when she found herself jostled from behind. Hard enough to send her stumbling. "I beg your pardon," a gentleman's voice said, with diction better than most people at court. "I do apologize. Are you all right?"

Ella stood straight again and brushed off her skirt even though her hands didn't come down to the now-dusty hem. "I'm all right, I'm fine," she brushed him off. "No matter." 

"I'm not usually so clumsy, but I'm afraid you have me quite distracted; I didn't know you attended court. You're Ella Dee, aren't you?"

Her chin jerked up; she looked, really looked at his face this time. No one at the court would address her in familiar terms, not even the Queen, if for no other reason than it would imply a relationship to which Ella was not yet entitled. "Who wants to know?" she blurted. Rude, but then again it was rude of him to address her as though they were close companions when she'd never met him before in her life.

"Forgive me, please, again. I'm a friend of your father's," he bowed over her hand, giving her deference that was not her due and smiling as he straightened again. He had, she noted absently before she allowed him to escort her in to supper, far too many teeth in his head for comfort.

"Oh..." she managed. Later, she would pinpoint that as the exact moment after which she remembered nothing else of the night.

  


  


  


For as often as she'd imagined capturing the attention of someone interesting at court and thereby making those afternoons as engaging as the rest, she had no idea what to do with him once she'd found him. 

David wasn't even someone of great importance. A priest from the Catholic church, one of the secretaries attached to the emissary from Rome, he only came around court in case he was needed to take notes on some council or another, and he found these affairs as dull as she did. Except for the occasional bout of mischief and stirring up trouble. Ella found she had a truly impish streak, leading him into wickedness as often as she did. Though there was, she told herself, no long-lasting harm in causing small quarrels over affairs that were, strictly speaking, true and very much in evidence. 

"It's a favor, really, we're demonstrating the fragility of his marriage and thereby saving both parties from continuing in their adulterous ways." She managed most of that with a straight face. He had to cover his mouth with a biscuit to keep from laughing too obviously. "No, there's no harm in it, is there? Neither of them have bad tempers, she'll be contrite and he'll plead a bit and they'll make up and go on as they did before. Maybe with a bit more secrecy, next time."

"I should disapprove of you encouraging them to keep their adulterous ways more hidden, rather than encouraging them to virtue," he pointed out. "But somehow I can't quite ..."

"You enjoy it," she pointed a finger at him. "Admit it. You enjoy it as long as they're not behaving too outrageously." 

Not a priest by choice, she had learned he was a third or fourth son and therefore there was little recourse for him but a trade or the clergy. He did seem the bookish type, thinner and reedy, so perhaps it was all for the best. But it also meant he was less interested in the specifics of the teachings of the Catholic Church and more interested in seeing that everyone was agreeable and taken care of. Or so he said, but Ella saw no reason to doubt him.

"I do enjoy a clever girl such as yourself putting her God-given talents to use," he admitted. Then pointed a finger back at her, until they almost touched. "You'll notice I don't say _good_ use."

Ella sighed, having failed to escape even mild disapproval. "You know I don't enjoy it here. I have to take my pleasures where I can."

"You find pleasure, then, in the discomfort of others?" His elegant eyebrows arched, and she squirmed. 

"No, that's not what I meant, and you know it." No, it was exactly what she'd meant, and she had hoped he wouldn't put that together. Which was likewise stupid of her. "No, I just... I get so bored, you know?"

"I could be mistaken, but I think there's a saying somewhere about idle hands... let me think on it a moment..." He pretended to think, and she pretended to swat him, catching a few disapproving looks. "We'll have to put your quick mind to better use. Isn't there something you could be doing with your father?"

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. Ella wasn't supposed to talk about what her father did, which wasn't hard because she had no idea, but that didn't mean she couldn't guess. And she wanted to. Desperately, she wanted to, because she wanted to prove to David that she could be useful and clever and not wicked at the same time. But she should keep her father's confidences. At least she could say something. "He doesn't approve of bringing me in on his work, I think he thinks I'm too young."

David frowned. "If you were a boy, you'd be apprenticed to his trade already. Do you think it's really because you're too young, or is he seeking a husband for you... No, forgive me, that wasn't my place to speculate."

"It's all right. No man would have an unsociable disaster like me, anyway," she told him, and they laughed about it. 

But the idea stuck in her head for days. Made her wonder what her father was up to in some of his quiet meetings. Surely he couldn't be speaking with the Queen about his plans for her, he had several children, and none of them were important enough for that, including her. She asked Dempsey, but all she got was a mild rebuke. For Dempsey, it was mild.

"Don't you have enough to be worrying about without thinking of marrying someone you don't even know your father's settled on yet?" 

Ella didn't like it. She said as much to David, who made sympathetic noises and pointed out that her father might not even be thinking of it yet, and she should make up her own mind. 

She scrubbed at a piece of lint on the hem of her bodice so she didn't have to look at him. "At the end of the day I'm not sure I've much of a mind left to make up," she muttered. Which was half true, as much as her father ran her ragged with different forms of training, and self-deprecating panic for the other half. "What if I get it wrong? Father's teaching me all these skills but he hasn't given me the faintest idea what I'm supposed to do with them."

"Well, what sort of skills?" David asked, bringing her with an arm around her shoulders out of the paths of circling nobility and closer to a corner where they could talk more privately. "Perhaps that will give you some idea as to what he means you to do?"

"Well, but, swordplay," she explained. "And alchemy, and astrology and religion. We read all sorts of books together and he asks me about them after, and he has me studying swordplay and keeping fit, look," she took his hand and put it on her arm. "That's not the arm of a lady..."

Too late, she realized what she'd done. Pushing the boundaries of propriety in conversation was one thing, doing so as far as physical contact went was something else. David licked his lips and kept his composure well, but she saw the thin line of white around his eyes as he pulled his hand back from hers, murmuring something about it not being proper.

"Sorry," she whispered. Which she was. Sorry both that she had offended him and that he hadn't been comfortable with touching her as she now knew she wanted him to be. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right," David sighed, and to prove it he stepped closer and put his hands on her shoulders. Paternal, though, and chaste. "You know I worry about you quite a bit. I just want to see you happy." His voice softened. She did believe him.

"What do you think you're doing?" 

Like a dream interrupted by the crashing of a door, her father loomed between them and shouted. David stepped back two paces from her, and the noise of the room rushed in on her again. 

"I do apologize," David bowed his head and kept his eyes downcast, not looking at her even when he raised his head. "If I have been too familiar with your daughter, it certainly was not my intent."

Her father wasn't having any of it, even as Ella opened her mouth to protest. "Was it not? I know you, sir, and I know your kind, and I know that your intentions are murky and clouded even to yourself, and rarely are they benevolent."

David lifted his head and he looked terrible, bloodshot and toothy, as though he hadn't slept for days and then drank too much wine. Ella gaped, staying otherwise still out of nerves and a sense that she'd somehow managed to wander very far out of her depth without meaning to. "Are they not?" David smiled. "And you know me well enough to go visiting my intentions?"

"As I said, I know your kind," her father retorted. "And my daughter is not for you, so take yourself elsewhere."

He bowed again, and did. Ella sucked in a breath once he'd gone, feeling as though she'd only then resumed breathing. "Father, what w--"

"Come along, Elizabeth," he dragged her by the wrist without giving her a chance to finish her sentence or explain herself. He didn't seem interested in explanations, at any rate. "We've got to see your namesake. It seems your training will come to a head more quickly than I thought."

It took Ella until they were at the door to realize which Elizabeth her father meant by that, and then she was too shocked to speak.

  


  


  


"Do you know what that was?" 

The Queen did not avert her eyes, nor did she stare directly at Ella. She had her mind and gaze on her texts, and Ella could only make out some of them. Diagrams like in her father's books, with paragraphs and paragraphs of notes beside. Ella shook her head, unsure of the question. "No, your majesty."

"That was a fallen angel, come to court to stir up trouble. Do you know what a Nephilim is, child?"

The floor had rocked out from under her, leaving her standing on air. Sweat sprang to her palms, which she scrubbed once or twice on her skirt before remembering she wasn't in her working trousers any longer. "Yes, your majesty." She knew what a Nephilim was. The child of an angel and a mortal woman, and if David was really a fallen angel he must have been one of that host. She'd thought they were dead, or banished, but the second she took breath to say that she thought better of it. No point in confirming her father's suspicion that she was a total idiot.

"They will try to seduce you," the Queen now raised her head and looked at Ella. "They will try to come at you quietly before they come at you openly, and they will want you because you stand at a very precarious point now. Do you understand?"

"Yes, y--" Ella started, then shook her head. Honesty was better here, honesty might get her somewhere, and if nothing else lying to the Queen about what she was capable of would get her into trouble, she knew that much. "No, your majesty. No, I'm afraid I have no idea what's going on here, why would a Nephilim want anything to do with me?"

The Queen directed a look to her father much like her father had looked at Ella a moment ago. That made Ella feel a tiny bit better, at least. "What have you been telling this child?" she sighed, exasperated. "I did not ask you for your eldest daughter in order that you keep her in the dark and unleash her on the court unprepared."

Her father dropped his head and gave an apologetic bow. Ella remembered to curtsey just in time, still mightily confused. 

"Yes, I asked your father to teach you all that he knows, and swordplay and fighting as well. There are dark forces within my court, you've met one of them yourself, and I need someone I can trust to watch and aid me against them, and to make sure I myself am not taken in. A guard would not be able to accompany me in all things, not without causing suspicion, but as I am already rumored to be superstitious, a lady in waiting, the daughter of my favorite astrologer," she favored John Dee with a smile, and he bowed his head again with more wry affection this time. "You might pass unnoticed and unremarked wherever I might need an ally."

Ella stretched herself to her full height, flushed and beaming. Which she corrected instantly, it would be quite improper to grin at the Queen like an idiot schoolboy, but, this made sense. A _bodyguard_. A secret one, too, and on her own for most of it. "Yes, your majesty. I mean. I understand, now."

"Good," the Queen nodded, then smiled and gestured for her to come closer. "There's the matter of your oath, but we can attend to that soon enough. I understand you've been a bit bored at court. You'll have little time for that, when you're made a lady in waiting."

"Yes, your majesty..."

  


  


  


"It's heavy," she complained. Quietly. "And itchy. Why is it always heavy and itchy."

"I think it has something to do with suffering building virtues," Dempsey whispered to her, grinning. "Hush. Your turn is coming."

Everything droned on and on, and she had a difficult time keeping up with the Latin. Not because she didn't understand it, but because it was so damned boring and repetitive. But Dempsey was right. It was her turn next, and she took her robes in her hands so she didn't trip on them, stepped forward without hesitation.

"Upon whose sword do you swear your oath?"

"Upon the sword of Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth of Britain, Supreme Governor of the Church." Her voice was clear and confident, and she fancied the Queen would have smiled at that if she could.

"And in whose name do you swear your oath?"

"In the name of the Lord our God, Christ our Savior, and the Holy Spirit, unto the service and Great Work of the Lord I commend my body, my thoughts, and my soul..."


End file.
